Recent Comments:
Khubilai Khan at the Met {Luxist}
Sep 25th 2010 4:52PM To be more accurate, prior to the 19th century there was no country named "China" or even "Chinese". If we have a time machine that take us back a few centuries to Beijing and ask if they're "Chinese", everyone would be scratching their heads. "China" was purely a geopolitical concept implying the "central kingdom or at the center of the world - at least known world". The names of the states were the dynastic names such as Great Qing empire, Great Yuan, etc. So when Khubilai Khan founded the Yuan dynasty, he saw himself as claiming the "mandate of heaven" and the legitimate Chinese emperor (not in ethnic sense as that did not exists but as the rightful ruler of the central kingdom in geopolitical sense. that was why he had Genghis on record as the founder of Yuan). What makes the history of that region so complex is that many of the concepts we use to define countries, citizens, ethnicity was vastly different prior to the 19th century.
Khubilai Khan at the Met {Luxist}
Sep 25th 2010 4:49PM To be more accurate, prior to the 19th century there was no country named "China" or even "Chinese". If we have a time machine that take us back a few centuries to Beijing and ask if they're "Chinese", everyone would be scratching their heads. "China" was purely a geopolitical concept implying the "central kingdom or at the center of the world - at least known world". The names of the states were the dynastic names such as Great Qing empire, Great Yuan, etc. So when Khubilai Khan founded the Yuan dynasty, he saw himself as claiming the "mandate of heaven" and the legitimate Chinese emperor (not in ethnic sense as that did not exists but as the rightful ruler of the central kingdom in geopolitical sense. that was why he had Genghis on record as the founder of Yuan). What makes the history of that region so complex is that many of the concepts we use to define countries, citizens, ethnicity was vastly different prior to the 19th century.
